| | |  | POP MUSIC | Home » » The Who At Kilburn: 1977 [Blu-ray] | | | | | | | Description: | | On December 15, 1977, after a hiatus of more than a year, The Who - Roger Daltrey, Pete Townshend, John Entwistle and Keith Moon - assembled at the Gaumont State Theatre in Kilburn, North London, to record a concert for Jeff Stein's documentary The Kids Are Alright. Filmed before an invited audience, it turned out to be Keith Moon's penultimate live performance. The concert film, now digitally restored and remastered, was never released.2008. | | | Product Details: | | | Actors:
| Austin Stoker, Laurie Zimmer | | Format:
| Color, DTS Surround Sound, Widescreen | | Language:
| English | | Number of Discs:
| 1 | | Studio:
| Image Entertainment | | Run Time:
| 138 minutes | | Blu-ray Release Date:
| November 18, 2008 | | Average Customer Rating:
|  based on 94 reviews |
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| New | |
| $18.56 | New | | | $18.75 | New | | | $19.52 | New | | | $19.68 | New | | | $20.35 | New | | | $21.52 | New | | | $21.55 | New | | | $21.59 | New | | | $21.66 | New | | | $21.73 | New | | | $21.84 | New | | | $21.93 This item is eligible for FREE Super Saver Shipping on orders over $25. | New | | | $21.95 | New | | | $22.98 | New | | | $23.12 | New | | | $23.25 | New | | | $23.56 | New | | | $23.98 | New | | | $24.81 | New | | | $25.59 | New | | | $26.52 | New | | | $27.25 | New | | | $30.13 | New | | | $30.28 | New | | | $34.99 | New | | | $119.99 | New | |
| Used | |
| $17.99 | Used
- Mint | | | $21.92 | Used
- Mint | | | $24.32 | Used
- Mint | | | $25.59 | Used
- Mint | | | $80.90 | Used
- Mint | | | $105.63 | Used
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| | | | Customer Reviews: | |
Average Customer Review:
 ( 94 customer reviews )
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews
120 of 124 found the following review helpful:
 ABSOLUTELY ESSENTIALNov 20, 2008
By Vote Libertarian
If you are a Who fan, or want to make a Who fan cry for joy, get this DVD. It's a must-have for any Who freak, second only to "The Kids Are Alright" documentary.
Disc 1 is the complete Kilburn 1977 show and disc 2 is the complete London Coliseum 1969 show. I have a huge bootleg collection and would rate both shows as two of the top five Who shows ever (to say nothing of their historic importance).
The 1977 Kilburn show is "take 1" of the 1978 Shepperton show (see "Baba O'Riley" and "Won't Get Fooled Again" on "The Kids Are Alright"). Both shows were private affairs filmed for the documentary, but except for Moon's shirt, they are almost indistinguishable. If you loved Townshend's and Moon's antics in those clips, this DVD is for you! FYI, this is the show that gave us "My Wife" on "The Kids Are Alright" soundtrack album.
Even better, guitar-wise, is the London 1969 concert. This is the show that gave us "Young Man Blues" on "The Kids Are Alright". This may be Townshend's best performance ever, but I don't want to start that fight here. Finally, why did they break up the London show and move the Tommy section to the Extras menu? Why not keep the entire show intact as the Lord intended it? It's all on the same disc anyway... I'll tell you why: because otherwise this DVD would be so perfect it would pull the rest of the universe into it and then we'd be totally screwed.
35 of 38 found the following review helpful:
Must see.Sep 19, 2008
By silly narwhal
"sillynarwhal"
Hey Zebba 9, what film were YOU watching?? The opener Can't Explain is kind of a warmup, after which Townshend is absolutely ferocious on guitar. And as animated & glassy-eyedly immersed as at any time in his career--this is definitely the Pete that would've kicked Abbey Hoffman off the stage again had he showed up. This performance demonstrates everything that makes the Who great~ these guys hadn't performed in a year, and they find spaces that hearken back to Leeds & Isle of Wight. Moon may look a little bloated, but he's in tremendous form musically. They all are, individually and as the collective organism that was the 'Orrible 'Oo.
Perhaps I'm making too much of it, but this performance is a revelation, in my opinion. At a time when they're supposed to have been a spent force, they reclaim and amply display their power here; they turn in a vintage performance for the lucky audience. There is a moment during Who Are You (which gave me chills when they went into it~ WHO KNEW?) where the communication breaks down (honestly, I think Pete aborts too early)....but they recover in spades with Won't Get Fooled Again (watch the roadies banging their heads) and the only reason for the breakdown in the first place was the willingness & confidence to take the chance and journey into open-ended territory.....just like they were doing in '70 during My Generation. Great My Generation here, too, by the way.
I agree about the camera angles, but not to the point of it being relevant to the basic thrill of this film. (Maybe they could release a you-control-the-angles version someday, like you can do for Baba O'Riley & Won't Get Fooled Again on the Kids Are Alright dvd).
I'd recommend this to any Who fan without another thought. I only wonder how this stayed hidden for so long.
52 of 61 found the following review helpful:
4.5 stars for the Kilburn performance section ....Sep 11, 2008
By bass boy
"music fan"
We Who fans finally get to see the infamous Kilburn 1977 gig here. I've seen the Kilburn footage (minus "Dreaming from the Waist"), and it's really good. It's wonderful to see a pre-LP version of "Who Are You" at this show, that bumps and grinds much more than the studio version would almost a year later. Drummer Keith Moon is in fiery form here - much more than he was at Shepperton Studios (for "The Kids Are Alright" movie) some five months later. I think Pete Townshend and John Entwistle might have sounded a little better at Shepperton, but Moon is in better form here on the Kilburn disc. He hits the drums harder, faster and is more precise. Don't get me wrong - I will take any Who footage, especially with Moon and The Ox. Be sure and watch what happens, at the tail end of "My Wife," when someone touches Townshend's guitar picks on Townshend's amp head. YIkes. Don't mess with the Godfather of punk rock, for sure. The camera stays on Townshend, who lets it be known to the guy - and the entire audience - that it's uncool to mess with The Who's stage equipment.
The ragged nature of the band here, most of the time, actually works for them during the Kilburn set. There's an edge to the quartet's efforts, and although there are flubs - Moon comes in too early during the intro of "Won't Get Fooled Again," and Townshend doesn't get all of his mojo on guitar until about 10 minutes into the show. Townshend is wilder here, jumping across the stage, bouncing, hitting his head on his Les Paul and becoming a human cyclone, wrapping himself up in his own guitar cord, than he was at Shepperton. Like the Shepperton footage, the Kilburn set is a keeper.
Hopefully, the London Coliseum set will be equally as impressive ...
7 of 7 found the following review helpful:
 A Must For the Die Hards, Not for New Who FansNov 21, 2008
By William Herlihy
A very interesting release---the 1977 Kilburn show that supposedly wasn't good enough to be used in the Kids Are Alright---now gets released in full. Was it good enough? Well, it was filmed so Jeff Stein would have some performances of Who's Next era songs non-existant on film: Baba O'Riley and Won't Get Foolded Again. The Kids Are Alright versions---filmed at Shepperton--of those two songs are a little better, especially WGFA. So Jeff made the right decision then to forget the Kilburn show. 30 years later, Who cares? Let's see everything that's still in the vault.
The fascination of this particular show is it's Keith's last proper concert appearance. Sadly, Keith is a shadow of his former self. He's only about 30 when this was filmed but looks 10 years older than he did on the 1975 tour--the last great Who performances.
The Kilburn show was the band's only performance of 1977 and it shows. They are all rusty. But a few times: Shakin' All Over, My Wife, Pinball Wizard, the old magic resurfaces. Townsend is clearly not happy, which results in a passionate performance. Daltrey forgets some lyrics but is generally in good form. The Ox is his normal, solid self. Always the best bass player on the planet.
The show is very well filmed. The sound is not as good as the film quality: Townsend is recorded well but Entwistle's bass is frustratingly low in the mix. It's hard to tell how Moon is recorded: he was not playing up to his normal standards and sometimes he's trying to hit all his drums at once, and not really hitting any of them at all. Other times he can still pull off a great fill or roll.
The London Coliseum show from 1969 is a quality addition and makes this package a great value. It's only stage lit--not lit for filming proper--but it's the Who at their performance peak. The sound is a bit muddy but still, any peak Who is a joy.
If you love the Who, you have to have this package. All Moon era film is a treasure. If you are a novice Who fan, this is not the first Who DVD to buy. The Kids Are Alright is the place to start.
9 of 10 found the following review helpful:
An interesting peek at Who historyNov 19, 2008
By terpfan1980
"Barry"
First up, salute to some of the other reviewers here at Amazon, a few of the featured (as I write this) reviews do a pretty good job of covering this artifact of rock concert history that has finally made it's way to Blu-ray disc. As noted, the concert performace is coarse in spots since the band hadn't peformed together in a years time. There are glitches during the performance that quite obviously irritate the band members and remind viewers that what they are seeing was filmed live and includes all of the warts.
What's also included is all of the energy of a Who concert. Pete Townshend's windmill guitar strumming, Keith Moon's frenetic drum playing (including flinging the drum sticks around and losing them time and again...) -- side note: if someone wanted to put together a drinking game for play while watching this film they'd probably want to include Townshend's windmill strumming and Moon's losing the drumsticks as the requirements to take another swig. It wouldn't take long at all to find the participants in such a drinking game pretty well inebriated ;-) -- and of course Roger Daltrey's strong lead vocals. All of which make bassist John Entwistle's performance seem a bit, well, stiff. No one could blame the guy really, as the rest of his band mate's certainly seemed to have the stage pretty well covered, especially with Townshend's jumping/hopping around the stage repeatedly.
The Who At Kilburn is a fascinating film largely because it even exists on film. It was filmed on 35mm film which is rather unusual for concert footage. Thankfully though that medium works well for providing a master for encoding to high def media, and thanks to that the product that viewers get on Blu-ray is, at least at this point technologically, as good as can be achieved on optical disc media.
Note that the Blu-ray disc is NOT RATED. If it were rated, it would probably have been given an R rating for the utterances of the f-bomb at several points throughout the course of the show.
Most definitely worth viewing, and an item that serious Who fans should add to their collection.
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